


The Weight On Your Shoulders

by Strigimorphaes



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Can be read as shippy if you like, Death, Female Friendship, Female-Centric, Fluff, Gen, Headcanons about vaire and mandos and such, Kindness, Mandos, The Valar, Tumblr: legendariumladiesapril, short and fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-23 22:27:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10728549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strigimorphaes/pseuds/Strigimorphaes
Summary: Miriel recieves a gift in Mandos.





	The Weight On Your Shoulders

**Author's Note:**

> For Legendarium Ladies April, super late but I wanted to do something. Didn't do a ton of reseach on this one, but hey... those sweet vala/elf relationships, yeah?

It is dark in the Halls of Mandos.

Not a crushing, endless, hopeless dark – it reminds Míriel more of the time just before dawn, when the sky lies in wait for the coming day in soft shades of grey and blue. Vairë needs a least a little light to work.

Míriel like the perpetual twilight. Coming to the Halls is a blessing for the tired - when she closes her eyes there are no bright stabs of colour visible through her eyelids. Nobody disturbs her as she sits in Vairë's peculiar court. Her hands seem to glow as she works on her embroidery. She does not need to look down anymore; her mind is free to wander, drawn to Vairë's work and the grander scenes unfolding on their tapestries. 

It is cold in the Halls as well, but no one who is there can feel it. 

Even Vairë does not feel it, but she knows that it is cold regardless, and the knowledge pricks at her like a needle in the hem of her dress.

There are some summers in Arda where life is quiet. On rare occasions months might pass with only incremental changes. That is just enough time for Vairë to cease her weaving for a short while, though she never, ever lets it out of her sight. Her eyes might dart around the room she sits in to admire the work she finds it hard to call her own, since it is as much a product of all the souls who act out the story as she who merely weaves it.

The tapestry stretches along stone walls all the way up to a vaulted ceiling where Namo has painted stars for her, an imitation of Varda's lights that comfort the dead souls a little and provide Vairë with pure joy when the silver light makes her silver thread shine. Rows of pillars go on and on until they meet the white mist where shadows wander. The floor is black in the distance but white as bone wherever you are - except for near Vairë, where bare feet will find soft cloth to tread on. The elves and maia in her service walk near-silently or sit around her, all of them contributing in some way to her creation. They sit on discarded capes, ornate dresses, yards of fabrics, bedlinens, embroidered tablecloths. All of it weaved and sown only to have been burnt with bodies or carried into Mandos as gifts and offerings. Sometimes, a spirit might recognize a token from a loved one. A son or a mother remembered after grazing the soft surface of silken clothing. Other times, a garment causes only grief or anger and is instead unravelled, thread by thread, repurposed for the tapestries.

Míriel watches both scenes play out equally calmly. Her family history is on the wall, growing day by day. She is very close to Vairë, able to hear every small whisper and click of her beautiful loom. It sounds like rain falling on the roof - though there seems to be neither rain nor roof in this place. 

The sound stops. 

Even closer to Vairë than Míriel is a wicker basket full of string and yarn. This is where her hand reaches when the tapestry can wait for just a little while.

It has taken a few years, but Vairë intends to finish her side project today. While Míriel puts the final touches on a vision of a battle, one of her grandsons visible in the vanguard with a sword of silver thread, the valie smooths out cinnamon-coloured wool blessed by Yavanna herself. A few loose threads, blue like sapphires, lie like rivers running down her skirt. A few of her attending elves look around, as if they hear bird-song or expect to see the sun. Those images - rivers, flying doves, golden rays of lamp-light - are what Vairë channels into the cloth. 

Then she ties a few knots, fixes a hem, and her blanket is finished.

The sense of daylight being near fades rapidly away, and the halls remain cool and pleasantly dark.

Vairë knows that there still is time before winter comes and the world spirals into chaos and ruin and turbulent stories again. Time enough for her to turn around and reach for Míriel. 

And Míriel is quiet, staring into the endless, all-seeing eyes of the Valie. She does not expect words; there is so little speech here. She merely waits. 

Slowly and deliberately, Vairë drapes her blanket around the elf-woman’s shoulders.  

"Please," Míriel says. Her voice does not carry far, swallowed by the tapestry-covered walls. "I am not cold. I am certain someone else needs this more than I do."

Vairë regards her mutely. None of the beings in Mandos need a blanket. And no blanket in the world would warm Míriel - but it conveys the intention that Vairë would  _like_  to warm her, that she wants to see Míriel surrounded by gold and red - Vairë nods. This work of hers has value, too. 

And as soon as the blanket leaves her hands Vairë is weaving again, recording a birth, a death, a distant conversation.

Míriel is behind her. The wool blanket is dyed like a facsimile of dawn, a gentle weight around her as she watches the fate of her kin. 

 


End file.
